Focus on the hard part

One clear message: Seth encourages the entrepreneurs to focus on the hard part of their business, which isn’t the same as the fun part.

The easy part is setting up your website, buying your domain name, and creating your logo. Almost anyone can do it. The hard part is finding someone to buy your product and deciding how you can market to them. Few people can do it.

Two of my dearest friends run an awesome company in Denver called Brewery Boot Camp. They partner with local breweries to offer an effective workout in a fun environment. They’re growing quickly now, which is exciting.

There are two ways to approach expansion: sign on more breweries or get more people to the existing breweries. Which one is the hard part?

Brief aside: This ties into a story Seth tells in the podcast about the start of the yellow pages. To sell advertising in the yellow pages, a sales rep walks into a pizza place. Instead of making a hard sales pitch, the sales rep offers to install a new phone in the restaurant. This new phone is connected to a new number and sits right beside the existing phone. The new number is then advertised in the yellow pages for a week. Orders are coming in like crazy, and it’s the new phone, not the old, existing one, that’s ringing off the hook. A week later, the sales rep comes back to take out the new phone. You can guess what happens next.

Signing on more breweries would be exciting, but it’s not that hard. Breweries want to have something new and exciting for their patrons.

Getting more people to existing brewery events is the hard part. Getting out of bed early on Saturday morning (even to workout at a brewery) is a tough call.

The good news is that once you solve the hard problem everything else gets easier. Once you can say, “We can bring 30 new patrons into your business every week” everyone is going to get onboard.